As FBI agents investigate a third male suspect at the nightclub terrorist’s mosque in Florida, neighbors complain the small Islamic center has become a hotbed for terrorist activity and have launched a petition drive to shut it down.

Many local residents say they feel afraid for their safety living near a mosque that has graduated two deadly terrorists in the past two years, and where federal investigators are now actively questioning additional worshipers in connection with long-time member Omar Mateen’s June 12 massacre in Orlando.

Close the Mosque organizers are planning to hold a large protest rally outside the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, but have run into difficulties obtaining permits from county government officials. Their movement has attracted more than 400 supporters. If they’re successful in shuttering the mosque, organizers say they’d like to erect a memorial site “to honor all the lives that have been lost.”

“The mosque leaders in Fort Pierce are complaining and scared for their lives after two killers came out of there,” wrote a local resident posting on the “Close the Mosque” Facebook page as Anthony Profeta. “Well, I got news for you: I’m scared your[sic] going to kill my kids, so pack up your things, close that mosque and leave town … your[sic] training future killers.”

Added Fort Pierce resident Joel Matt: “Time to shut that place down until further investigation is done.”

“Bulldozer that place,” another local remarked.

On Friday, two FBI agents met with an unidentified member of the Islamic center, a fellow worshiper of Mateen, for more than a half hour before Friday prayers started. I’m told investigators plan to interview more members of the mosque this week. Agents are following up on a lead from a gun store operator, who told authorities he overheard Mateen, an Afghan-American, speaking to a possible co-conspirator “in a foreign language” several weeks ago when Mateen came into his gun shop looking to buy body armor and bulk ammo.

About two years ago, agents paid leaders at the same Islamic center a visit to investigate the mosque’s ties to another worshiper, Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, who is believed to be the first American suicide bomber in Syria. Mateen prayed alongside Abu-Salha, who left his car in the mosque parking lot before flying to Syria.

The renewed focus on the mosque as a terrorism hub has neighbors spooked.

“How many people that attend your mosque are going to become radicalized before we have to ask what the f*** are you teaching in there?” a local resident identifying himself as Brad Mulcahy posted on the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce’s Facebook page.

Mateen, who was shot dead by police after shooting an unprecedented 102 innocent people, killing 49, at the gay Pulse club in Orlando, regularly attended the Islamic center for more than a dozen years, praying there up to four times a week. In fact, Mateen prayed at the mosque the night before his terrorist attack.

His three sisters worked at the mosque, located on Midway Road, and property records show two of them own homes on the same street. His father, a Taliban-supporting immigrant from Afghanistan, sat on the mosque’s board of directors and once served as its vice president, as CounterJihad.com first reported last week.

Mosque leaders deny that Mateen, who pledged allegiance to ISIS, was radicalized at the Islamic center; and they maintain that they did not interact with him and were unaware of any extremist religious or political views that he held.

The president and imam of the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, Dr. Syed Shafeeq Rahman, said it is merely “a coincidence” that two deadly terrorists prayed at his mosque.

“This is a coincidence,” he said. “There is no teaching given about extremism in this mosque.”

He claims the mosque has received death threats and has had to hire private security after the St. Lucie County sheriff’s office declined to provide a security detail. St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken Mascara said his agency is limited by staffing and other security contracts.

The Islamic Center of Fort Pierce was founded in the 1990s to accommodate a growing number of Muslim immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, who settled in the area famous for its orange groves in the 1970s after Democrat-sponsored federal legislation opened up U.S. immigration to such regions.

The Midway Road mosque was converted from an old Christian church. A sister mosque — The Islamic Center of Muslim Friends of Florida — operates in an abandoned building with no signage a little more than a mile away.

Thanks to immigration, the Muslim population has exploded across the state of Florida, allowing some of the 9/11 hijackers to blend in in nearby cities and take flight lessons before the 2001 attacks. Many terrorist cells remain secreted throughout the state, terrorism experts say.

Top Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Loretta Lynch, have worked with an organization dedicated to interfering with law enforcement efforts to monitor activities at the most radical mosques.

Lynch and DOJ Civil Rights Division head Vanita Gupta have appeared at gala events for an organization called Muslim Advocates. The George Soros-funded charity has badgered the New York City Police Department away from monitoring the most radical mosques in the city.

The organization is also responsible for rewriting training materials for federal law enforcement to decouple the role of radical Islam from terrorist acts. An inter-agency working group comprised of multiple federal law enforcement agencies in 2014 adopted this whitewash urged by Muslim Advocates.

The DOJ’s short-lived effort to airbrush Islam out of the 911 tapes from Orlando shows you how far they will go to twist the truth about what is causing these attacks. I appeared on Fox and Friends today to discuss the organization and the latest. (Video here).

Civil Rights Division head Gupta appeared at the sold-out annual gala event for Muslim Advocates in Millbrae, California. Muslim Advocates lobbies the administration heavily to oppose any link between terrorist acts and radical Islam, and opposes monitoring of radical mosques. Gupta told the crowd:

To anyone who feels afraid, targeted, or discriminated against because of which religion you practice or where you worship, I want to say this — we see you. We hear you. And we stand with you.If you ever feel that somehow you don’t belong, or don’t fit in, here in America, let me reassure you you belong.

Muslim Advocates also conducts recruitment and training for lawyers designed to help FBI terrorist targets and interviewees navigate the interviews. Their annual report states:

Throughout the year we grew our internal volunteer referral list for FBI interviews. Today, the list is over 130 lawyers nationwide who are ready and able to assist community members contacted by the FBI.

The purported non-partisan tax exempt 501(c)(3) charity is conducting a campaign against corporations like Coca-Cola to hector them into not sponsoring the Republican convention in Cleveland.

Muslim Advocates gave Vanita Gupta their Thurgood Marshall Award “for her commitment to criminal justice reform and to holding perpetrators of anti-Muslim hate accountable” at the California gala.

Attorney General Eric Holder also appeared at a Muslim Advocates gala event on December 10, 2010.

Noor Salman, the wife of Omar Mateen, the Orlando gay nightclub jihad mass murderer, has gone missing, and with good reason: she explodes the idea that Mateen was a “lone wolf” terrorist. She should be arrested – but now she is gone.

Salman witnessed him selling his house to his brother-in-law for $10 – a clear indication that the couple knew jihad was in the offing. She has admitted to law enforcement authorities that she and her husband had recently been “scouting Downtown Disney and Pulse [the nightclub where the jihad massacre took place] for attacks.” Mateen texted her during his massacre, asking if she had seen the news; she responded that she loved him.

As authorities deliberated over whether or not to arrest her, Salman herself showed more dispatch. Last Wednesday, the killer’s father, Seddique Mir Mateen, told reporters that Salman was “no longer here.”

No one seems to have asked Seddique Mateen himself where she has gone, but he probably knows. There are, after all, numerous indications that he may not be as upset about his son’s jihad massacre as he has claimed: he is an open supporter of the Taliban, and the morning after the murders, he posted online a video in which he claims that he was “not aware what motivated” Omar to “go into a gay club and kill 50 people,” but then he adds: “God will punish those involved in homosexuality,” as it is “not an issue that humans should deal with.”

Despite Seddique Mateen’s professed puzzlement over his son’s actions and denial that Omar had been “radicalized,” is it really any wonder that a man who grew up in a household in which the Taliban were held up as positive role models would turn out to be a jihad terrorist? Omar Mateen is known to have cheered at school when al-Qaeda flew planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001; is it likely that his father, a supporter of al-Qaeda’s allies and collaborators the Taliban, rebuked him for doing so?

While not revealing where Noor Salman is, the family issued a statement saying: “Noor is completely innocent and [was] unaware of the attacks.” It added the claim that she is unable to comprehend “cause and effect.” The mainstream media, always anxious to exonerate Islam from responsibility for the crimes done in its name and in accord with its teachings, even dragged out Salman’s middle school teacher to say: “Noor had difficulty with retention, she had difficulty with conceptualizing, understanding, all challenges to her. She tried hard. She was very sweet.”

All that may be so, but Noor Salman is an adult now, and her difficulty in middle school is irrelevant to whether or not she aided her husband in preparing for his jihad massacre. She should have been arrested, and the whole family needs to be investigated. Former Department of Homeland Security official Philip Haney responded trenchantly to common media claims that Mateen was “self-radicalized”: “As though nobody knew anything – that’s completely preposterous. If you know anything about the Islamic worldview, family and community is ultimately central to everything they do. The concept of operating alone is anathema to the Islamic worldview. They just don’t do it. So, self-radicalization – what does that even mean any more? Nobody is self-anything in this world we live in.”

Yet the feds let Noor Salman slip through their fingers – and whatever Muslim community in which she is hiding now isn’t calling the police to alert them of her whereabouts. Was the FBI too complacent in its politically correct dogma that Muslims in America all hold to a benign, peaceful form of the faith, and that any Muslim in the U.S. who becomes a jihad murderer must have been “radicalized on the Internet,” to be too concerned about the possibility that Omar Mateen’s family was complicit in his attack? How long will it be before Seddique Mateen and the rest of the family absconds, as did Noor Salman?

The Orlando jihad massacre was eminently preventable: the FBI questioned Omar Mateen but deemed him unworthy of close scrutiny, even after a gun shop owner reported him; agents didn’t even bother to visit the shop. This was after Mateen bragged to coworkers about jihad ties, but the FBI called off investigation, dismissing the coworkers as “Islamophobic,” and after Mateen threatened to kill a sheriff and his family, and the FBI dismissed the threat. Now they have let Noor Salman slip through their fingers. Would it have been “Islamophobic” to arrest her? And how many more Americans have to die before the politically correct fantasies that hamstring law enforcement today are discarded?

State legislation known as “Andy’s Law” stiffens criminal penalties for terrorism and material support for terrorism.

It is needed on the state level because our bureaucratized counterterrorism apparatus on the federal level is routinely reluctant to bring terrorism charges in cases that are clearly terrorism. The law also creates a civil cause of action empowering victims of terrorism to sue in state court those who provide material support and aid those who commit acts of terrorism. Andy’s Law has already passed into law in Louisiana, Arkansas, Kansas, North Carolina and Tennessee.

It is called Andy’s Law after Private Andy Long, who was gunned down on June 1, 2009 by a Jihadist named Abdulhakim Muhammed outside an Army Recruiting office in Little Rock, Arkansas, as reported in the documentary, “Losing Our Sons.”

In this undated photo provided by the U.S. Army in Little Rock, Ark., Tuesday, June 2, 2009, Pvt. William Long, 23, of Conway, Ark., is shown Friday, May 15, 2009. Long was killed outside an Army-Navy Career Center in a west Little Rock shopping center on Monday, June 1. (AP Photo/U.S. Army)

One state in which Andy’s Law will not be passed into law in 2016 evidently is Florida.

That’s because the state’s House Speaker, Steve Crisafulli, killed the Andy’s Law bill that was authored by Senator Joe Negron and Representative Mike Hill.

Prior to Crisafulli’s action, the bill had passed 3 committees in the Florida Senate, 2 subcommittees of the House and a full committee of the House without a single opposing vote.

It then passed the full Senate 35-0.

Andy’s Law Sponsor Senator Joe Negron

At the 11th hour, at Crisafulli’s specific direction, the bill was blocked from a vote on the House floor.

Crisafulli is a prime example of a generation of establishment Republican politicians who have failed the nation in terms of making national security a top priority as President Reagan did.

The question remains: why did Crisafulli block a measure that has sailed through state legislatures elsewhere and had unanimous bipartisan support in the Florida legislature?

The only known opponents of Andy’s Law are Muslim Brotherhood groups, as identified in the largest terrorism financing prosecution in U.S. history, the U.S. v. the Holy Land Foundation.

In that trial, groups such as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) and others were named as Muslim Brotherhood fronts and unindicted co-conspirators in that prosecution.

All of these well-funded groups and their allies are active in Florida. They are the only known opponents of Andy’s Law. This raises serious questions about the political terrain in the Sunshine State to say the least when a prominent Republican leader would unilaterally kill a popular counterterrorism measure opposed by nefarious elements of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The news of shots being fired at a Muslim family’s home in Orlando, FL in the wake of the Paris, France terror attacks has made national news with base reporting from local outlets such as www.wftv.com:

A 55-year-old Orange County family’s home was shot at Sunday, causing concern that their Muslim faith may have played a part in the wake of terrorist attacks in France.

The homeowner, who told Channel 9 his name is Amir Elmasri but is listed as Mahmoud Elmasri in an Orange County Sheriff’s report, was not home at the time of the shooting, which he believes happened between 8 and 10:20 a.m. Sunday.

During terrorist attacks in Paris Friday night, 129 people were killed and hundreds were wounded. Extremist group the Islamic State took credit for the attacks and warned of similar attacks in the U.S.

Similar reports were made by www.mynews13.com and the Orlando Sentinal. Accounts indicate that CAIR is investigating the shooting as a hate crime and calling on the Department of Justice to conduct its own investigation

Amir Elmasri

What is not mentioned in any of the news reports is Amir Elmasri’s past ties to an apparent U.S. Muslim Brotherhood Phone Scam that funneled money to the Benevolence and Global Relief Foundation located in Bridgeview, Ill.

Both groups have been designated by the U.S Government as terrorist organizations in connection with the funding of Al-Qaida.

Muslim charities suspected of helping finance international terrorism received at least $1.9 million in the past five years from Florida donors, records show.

The article further indicates:

One of the biggest single contributors was International Charity Network, a Winter Park company that gave $300,000 to Benevolence in 1996 and 1997 alone. Two other related local firms have given Benevolence a total of $171,210 since 1996.

A 2001 The Orlando Sentinel article also reported on theses links to terrorist groups and indicated that funding was achieved through changing subscribed Muslims’ long distance phone service over to MCI.

According to corporate filings, International Charity Network is now called Net One International, Inc. and Amir Elmasri has been listed as the vice-President of the company since 1998.

The phone program follows the Muslim Brotherhood pattern of using deceptively described charities as a means to support terrorist causes.

RELATED: In 2014, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposed a penalty of $1,600,000 against Net One International, Inc. (Net One or Company), for apparently billing consumers for unauthorized charges and fees purportedly in connection with long distance telephone service—a practice commonly known as “cramming.” Amir Elmasri is listed as the vice-president of Net One International in the FCC filing.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

COMMENT: A search of the CAIR national site failed to disclose any mention of this incident. A check of the CAIR-FL website showed simply a repost of news report that a family “claims it was targetted by gunfire” and “The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Florida said that it is investigating the case with their attorneys to determine whether the family was targeted.” Any mention of a request for Department of Justice action could not be found.

It’s back to school time for kids. New teacher, new friends and new costs for school supplies – something parents know can be fairly expensive! To exploit this financial concern, this past July, Islamist groups, including ICNA, CAIR and Emerge USA, along with Broward County School Board Member Ann Murray, participated in a program at Miramar Elementary Public School to give away school supplies to children in need. While the children weren’t old enough to understand who they were accepting gifts from, parents should be alarmed to discover the tainted favors came from groups associated with terror and bigotry.

The flyer for the event reads, “A Project of ICNA Relief. BACK2SCHOOL GIVEAWAY. HELP US HELP THE CHILDREN IN NEED.” The sponsors listed on the flyer include: the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and the Florida Islamic Association (FIA).

ICNA Relief is the main charity of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), the American affiliate of South Asian Islamist group Jamaat-e-Islami. Jamaat-e-Islami’s militant wing, Hizbul Mujahideen, owned the Pakistani compound where Osama bin Laden was killed in. ICNA has been linked to terrorist financing and has used the web to promote a number of terrorist groups, including Hamas, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and the Taliban. ICNA conducts annual functions along with the Muslim American Society (MAS), a group that was recently named to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government list of international terrorist organizations.

CAIR, like MAS, was named to the UAE list of terror groups. CAIR was established, in June 1994, as one of four groups under the leadership of then-global head of Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzook, who was residing in the US at the time. Since CAIR’s founding, a number of representatives for the group have been imprisoned in and/or deported from the US for reasons related to terrorist activity. CAIR itself was named a co-conspirator by the US government for two federal trials dealing with the financing of Hamas. In August 2014, CAIR-Florida Executive Director Hassan Shibly tweeted, “Israel and its supporters are enemies of God.”

FIA calls itself a “community-building” organization, whose goal is to “collaborate” with Islamic organizations, schools and mosques. This year alone, FIA has run events with ICNA Relief and MASas well as different radical mosques, including the Islamic Center of Boca Raton (ICBR) and Nur-ul-Islam, where the kids’ backpacks being given away at ICNA Relief’s BACK2SCHOOL event were assembled.

ICBR has a long list of terrorist connections. A co-founder of ICBR, Bassem Alhalabi, was charged by the U.S. government with the illegal export of a $13,000 military-grade thermal imaging device to Syria. Another co-founder, Syed Khawer Ahmad, was a website developer and webmaster for Hamas in Gaza. One former imam of ICBR, Ibrahim Dremali, was placed on the federal “no-fly” list, and another, Muneer Arafat, admitted under oath that he was an affiliate of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. A member of the mosque, Rafiq Abdus Sabir, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaeda.

Nur-Ul-Islam, located in Cooper City, Florida, also has significant ties to terrorism. A former member of the mosque’s Islamic Affairs Council and ex-Vice President of its children’s school, Nur-ul-Islam Academy (NUIA), Raed Musa Awad, was the Florida representative for the Hamas charity, Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), and oversaw the conversion to Islam by convicted terrorist “Dirty Bomber” Jose Padilla. The website of NUIA previously contained links to violent, anti-Semitic and anti-Christian material, including having a link to islamway.com, a website that encouraged its viewers to donate money to Hamas.

Not listed on the flyer, but also taking part at the event was Emerge USA, an Islamist group that attempts to dupe politicians into attending its functions by seducing them with a “Muslim vote.” Regardless of the group’s patriotic-sounding name, Emerge is nothing more than a front for anti-American and anti-Israeli extremists.

A founder and co-chair of Emerge (and ex-CAIR lawyer), Khurrum Wahid, is a South Florida attorney who has become known for representing various high profile terrorists, including members of al-Qaeda and financiers of the Taliban. According to the Miami New Times, Wahid himself was placed on a federal terrorist watch list in 2011. Co-founder and trustee of Emerge, Saif Ishoof, is a former organizer and contact for the extreme anti-Israel group, March for Justice. Emerge lecturer, Sayed Ammar Nakshawani, is a follower of former Iranian terror leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and has previously called for the destruction of Israel.

One of the contacts for the ICNA Relief BACK2SCHOOL event was the Outreach Coordinator of the Florida chapter of ICNA Relief, Taha Qureshi. Last month, Qureshi posted a photo on his Facebook page making light of what appears to be a Muslim man beating his two children with one of his slippers, as the children cower in fear. The other contact for the event, Emerge National Government Affairs Director Tamara Ayon, is the former Executive Director of the Broward Democratic Party.

The main leader of the event was the Registered Agent and Secretary of ICNA Relief Florida, Abdul Rauf Khan. Khan has used his Facebook page to post videos dedicated to Nation of Islam leader and anti-Jewish bigot Louis Farrakhan and Egypt’s banned Muslim Brotherhood. He also posted a link on his Facebook site to an anti-Semitic video labeling comedian talk show host Bill Maher, “Zionist Jew Bill Maher.”

Along with Rauf, participating at the event were Emerge USA National Executive Director Tamim Chowdhury and Broward County School Board Member Ann Murray. A video for the event was made featuring the three.

On the video, Murray, who acted as Rauf and Chowdhury’s “useful idiot,” stood centered between the two men, with a sizeable ICNA Relief banner hanging behind her. She spoke for more than half of the two-and-a-half minute piece, taking a large chunk of the time to praise the Islamist organizers of the event and making sure to announce her government title and the district she represents.

The video was filmed (and the event took place) at Miramar Elementary School, a taxpayer-funded public school located in Broward County. Under the cynical guise of charitable intent, public schools are a prime target for Islamist infiltration.

Ramadan makes for the strangest of bedfellows, but for politicians who are hungry for votes, a radical mosque headed by an anti-homosexual imam is not such a bad place for a photo op. That is just what happened earlier this month, when Florida State Representative Rick Stark and Vice Mayor of Pembroke Pines, Florida Jay Schwartz joined imam Maulana Shafayat Mohamed and others for a Ramadan meal at Darul Uloom, a South Florida mosque where at least five al-Qaeda operatives have passed through.

On June 22, 2015, an iftar (break-the-fast) dinner was held at the Darul Uloom mosque in Pembroke Pines. The event was sponsored by Emerge USA, a group that attempts to dupe politicians into attending its functions by seducing them with a “Muslim vote.” In reality, though, regardless of the group’s patriotic-sounding name, Emerge is nothing more than a front for anti-American and anti-Israel Islamists.

A founder and co-chair of Emerge, Khurrum Wahid, is a South Florida attorney who has become known for representing various high profile terrorists, including members of al-Qaeda. Wahid previously served as a legal advisor for the national office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR has been linked to Hamas leadership and has been cited by the U.S. government for its involvement with Hamas financing. CAIR was also recently named to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) list of international terrorist organizations.

Co-founder and trustee of Emerge, Saif Ishoof, is a former organizer and contact for the extreme anti-Israel group, March for Justice. While with March for Justice, Ishoof organized an event at the University of Miami, in October 2002, which labeled then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon “the world’s longest standing terrorist” and Israel an “illegitimate state.” Ishoof said he was “outraged” that his former university would host then-senior advisor to Sharon, Raanan Gissin, referring to Gissin as “a mouthpiece of state sponsored terrorism.”

Acting on its sinister mission, Emerge invited a number of local politicians to speak at at an event hosted by the Darul Uloom mosque, an Islamic center with ties to terrorist-related and viciously anti-Semitic individuals. The group had takers, including at least two with Jewish backgrounds.

One of the politicians was Florida State Representative Rick Stark. Another was Vice Mayor of Pembroke Pines Jay Schwartz. And yet another was Judicial Candidate Andrea Gunderson, who in a woeful act of self-debasement, wrapped her head in a big purple scarf to emulate a Muslim woman’s hijab (head covering). Each addressed the crowd in front of a large Emerge USA backdrop.

There are two new youthful faces at the CAIR-Florida office in Tampa. And like the organization they represent, their actions are those of Islamic extremists.

On January 9, 2015, on the official website of the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a press release was posted discussing the group’s hiring of two individuals to its staff, Laila Abdelaziz and Ali Akin Kurnaz. According to the release, “Laila Abdelaziz joined the CAIR Florida team as the Legislative and Government Affairs Director, and Ali Kurnaz joined [the] CAIR team as its Communications Coordinator.”

CAIR was established in June 1994 as being part of the American Palestine Committee, an umbrella organization acting as a terrorist enterprise run by then-global Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook, who was based in the U.S. at the time and who now operates out of Egypt as a spokesman for Hamas. In 2007 and 2008, amidst two federal trials, the U.S. government named CAIR a co-conspirator in the raising of millions of dollars for Hamas. Along with ISIS, al-Qaeda and Boko Haram, CAIR is listed as a terrorist organization by United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Both Abdelaziz and Kurnaz came to CAIR by way of Emerge USA, Abdelaziz being the Tampa-area Regional Field Coordinator of Emerge and Kurnaz being the Central Florida Regional Director of Emerge.

Emerge USA, like CAIR, has a friendly – even patriotic – sounding name, yet the reality of the organization is that it presents a dangerous facade. Emerge is a politically active Islamist group whose goal is to place radical Muslims into positions of influence and power.

The head of Emerge, Khurrum Wahid, who previously served as a legal advisor for CAIR, is a South Florida attorney who has built a name for himself by representing high profile terrorists. His past clients include: Rafiq Sabir, who received a 25 year prison sentence for conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaeda; Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who was given a life sentence for being a member of al-Qaeda and for plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush; and Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami al-Arian, who was deported to Turkey last month.

Abdelaziz and Kurnaz have their own troubling past, beyond their involvement with Emerge.

In January 2010, during a town hall meeting for Barack Obama, Ramallah-born Laila Abdelaziz denounced Israel in a question she posed to the President. “[W]hy have we not condemned Israel and Egypt’s human rights violations against the occupied Palestinian people, and yet we continue supporting them financially with billions of dollars from our tax dollars?” she belligerently asked.

In November 2012, when Israel invaded Gaza, in order to stop Hamas from continuing to target her citizens with rockets – over 2000 rockets in less than one year – Abdelaziz tweeted, “Don’t worry ya Gaza, we’re working hard for you in Florida.”

As well, she described an interfaith initiative between Jews and Muslims as “flawed” and “comical,” and just one week ago, she labeled an article written by a Muslim girl about the girl’s recent trip to Israel, which was sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), as “ridiculous.” The girl, Aliya Manjee, describes herself as “pro-Palestine,” but to Abdelaziz merely visiting Israel is a crime.

Abdelaziz’s counterpart at CAIR, Ali Kurnaz, is no less extreme.

In January 2009, during Israel’s previous incursion into Gaza, Kurnaz filmed and edited a video of a CAIR sponsored anti-Israel protest that had been held in Orlando. Kurnaz produced the video for a group called Liberated Front. A representative from Kurnaz’s group, Nancy Zanaty, was featured on the video loudly denouncing former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Also on Kurnaz’s video, viewers repeatedly witness rally goers shout “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” It is the same slogan used in Gaza by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to call for Israel’s destruction. The river is the Jordan River, and the sea is the Mediterranean – both sides of Israel.

In July 2014, Kurnaz attacked U.S. Representative Ted Deutch, when Deutch sent a tweet against Hamas and in support of Israel’s right to defend herself. Deutch wrote, “As Hamas and other terrorists fire on Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and all of #Israel, I strongly support Israel’s actions to defend her citizens.” Kurnaz tweeted the following in reply to Deutch, “[T]hink before you tweet. Your lopsided message conveys your lack of understanding of this conflict.”

This past January, Kurnaz followed the Twitter account of an individual named Alexus Morales. Much of Morales’ Twitter is devoted to support for Hezbollah. Indeed, the header of Morales’ Twitter page is a Hezbollah flag.

None of this can be seen as controversial to Hassan Shibly, the Executive Director of CAIR-Tampa. In June 2011, the Tampa Tribune reported on previous statements Shibly had made regarding Hezbollah. Shibly had stated that Hezbollah was “basically a resistance movement” and “absolutely not a terrorist organization.”

What may be controversial to everyone, though, is a tweet by Ali Kurnaz, where he seemed to be admitting to abusing illegal drugs. He stated, “Instead of war on poverty, they got a war on drugs so the police can bother me.” Question: Why do the police have reason to “bother” Kurnaz?

Regardless of the answer, with the hiring of Laila Abdelaziz and Ali Kurnaz, CAIR-Florida has continued to show why it is a danger to society. Given all the upheavals which are taking place involving Islamic extremist groups, closing down CAIR in the USA would appear to be a foregone conclusion.

UF Preparing To Launch Islamic Studies Center

The University of Florida will soon have a Center for Global Islamic Studies.

The establishment of the center was recently approved by the university and will be announced to the UF Board of Trustees when it meets this week, said Terje Ostebo, assistant professor at the Center for African Studies and the Department of Religion.

“We are very excited about this,” Ostebo told The Sun via email. “There are very few similar programs in the Southeast, and virtually none in Florida. This center will contribute to putting UF on the map.”

The official launch of the center will be Sept. 18-19, with a conference on “Global Islam and the Quest for Public Space,” he said.The conference will feature John Esposito, a religion professor at Georgetown University and founding director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding in the Walsh School of Foreign Service.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

COMMENT/ANALYSIS: As noted by The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch (GMBDW), Professor Esposito has espoused views consistent with Muslim Brotherhood doctrine and has at least a dozen past or present affiliations with global Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas organizations. A reportby the Investigative Project on Terrorism notes that Esposito has frequently made statements defending Islamic terror groups and downplaying the threat of Islamist violence.

Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal is part of the Saudi Royal family and CEO of Kingdom Holding Company, an investment group that has significant interests in a number of media outlets as well as Twitter. He has provided significant donations to U.S. Muslim Brotherhood groups such as Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) as well as towards U.S. colleges/universities to promote Islamic studies. His monetary support ($20 million) to the Georgetown University Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (CCMU) founded by Esposito resulted in the center being renamed to the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.

In 2008 it was reported that Prince Talal ” made numerous financial contributions to a pan-Islamic interfaith dialog organization that is closely tied to the global Muslim Brotherhood.” In 2013, Prince Talal met with the Secretary-General of the Muslim World League (MWL) to discuss funding matters. According to GMBDW:

The Muslim World League was established in 1962 as a means for the propagation of Saudi “Wahabbi” Islam. Muslim Brothers played an important role in its founding and the League has always been strongly associated with the Brotherhood. US government officials have testified that MWL has been linked to supporting Islamic terrorist organizations globally and the organization has a long history of anti-Semitism.

The Prince has a keen interest in U.S. colleges and universities. With Professor Esposito’s appearance at the UF center’s launch, expect future funding/influence from Prince Talal as has been seen at Harvard and Georgetown. In 2009, Yale selected Muna Abu Sulayman as a world fellow. Suluayman is the daughter of Dr. Abdul Hamid Abu Sulayman,described by GMBDW as “one of the most important figures in the history of the global Muslim Brotherhood”. She was also the founding Secretary General of the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation.

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has a history of focusing on a presence on U.S. colleges/universities through various groups. In 1963 the Muslim Student’s Association (MSA) was formed by Muslim Brotherhood members at the University of Illinois and can now be found on many college campuses. In our report on Tampa’s Oaktree Institute we noted that MB groups in the U.S. work closely with youth and student organizations to educate and groom the next generation of cultural jihadis.

She discussed the forthcoming May 17th March against persecution of Christians in Orlando, Florida modeled on an annual one that occurs each December in Vienna. [The Orlando march will be held the evening of May 17th with remarks by the organizers and several speakers followed by a torch light silent parade]. {Sabaditsch-Wolff] will be coming to the US to join Florida March organizers Rev. Bruce Lieske and Alan Kornman of The United West. Lieske had witnessed the last March against Christian Persecution in Vienna and was moved to sponsor one in Florida, next month. Among the European contingent attending the Orlando March will be Sister Hatune Dogan, a Syrian Orthodox Christian Nun of Turkish origins. Read her speech in an Austrian Cathedral delivered on December 28, 2013, here.

Watch this You Tube video with Rev. Bruce Lieske of the Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Orlando extending an invitation for you to attend the May 17, 2014 Prayer March against Persecution of Christians:

During our interview with Sabaditsch-Wolff, she noted the canard radical Muslims typically use, “first the Saturday people, then the Sunday People. Perhaps it is time for the Saturday people to defend the imperiled Sunday people”.

That was the subject of a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by the Hon. Ron Prosor, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN published last Friday, The Middle East War on Christians. Ambassador Prosor drew attention to the plight of ancient Christian communities in the Middle East and elsewhere threatened with extinction caught between warring radical Islamic extremist groups and ruling autocrats in the Middle East. He revealed that the only country in the region where Christian populations have increased is Israel. Further as we have written Orthodox Christians in Israel have rejected the label of Arab Christians as inappropriate and now unabashedly have signed up as loyal citizens to serve in the IDF according to Father Gabriel Naddaf, “Israel’s Christians Who Defend the Jewish State.”

This week, the Florida state legislature passed SB 386, a bill supported by ACT! For America that will help protect Floridians from foreign law that is inconsistent with American values, such as Islamic sharia law.

There has been a great deal of mis- and disinformation about SB 386, so we wanted to set the record straight on what the bill accomplishes.

When hopefully signed into law by Governor Scott, the bill will:

Help protect Florida parents who face loss of their children to a foreign custody judgment;

Help protect parents and spouses from marital contracts (including Islamic marital contracts often named mahrs) that would force decisions regarding child custody, spousal support and marital property distributions to be decided in foreign courts or under foreign law in American courts;

And, help protect parents and spouses from having disputes regarding child custody, spousal support and marital property distributions from being dismissed by Florida courts in favor of being decided in foreign courts.

Although American and Florida courts have held in the past that foreign law should not be applied when the foreign law offends public policy, this concept has not previously been strengthened by statute. Further, under current Florida child custody statutes a judge can refuse to enforce a foreign custody judgment only “if the child custody law of a foreign country violates fundamental principles of human rights.” Unfortunately, statements by the U.S. State Department suggest that “fundamental principles of human rights” should be interpreted more narrowly than how most Americans would interpret the phrase. SB 386 authorizes a Florida judge to refuse to enforce a foreign custody judgment under the much broader standard of whether the judgment offends the public policy of Florida.

Therefore, the most important effect of the change in the law in Florida would be to protect parents from losing their children to foreign custody decrees, which has happened before.

For example, a Maryland appellate court, in Hosain v. Malik, enforced a Pakistani custody order, issued under a sharia rule granting sole custody to the father when the child reaches the age of seven, handing a little girl who was being cared for by her mother over to the father.

Further, a California appellate court, in In re Marriage of Malak, enforced a Lebanese custody decree granting custody to the husband, even though the trial court had found that the wife had been denied due process in Lebanon, and the Lebanese Islamic court did not base its ruling upon the best interests of the child.

SB 386 grants Florida parents the ability to dissuade Florida courts from following such shocking rulings enforcing foreign sharia judgments, and thereby not lose their children to similar rulings.

Much has been made of the fact that the SB 386 applies to family law. From a practical standpoint, this represents no real difference when compared to American Laws for American Courts laws in other states, since 80% or more of cases in US state courts in which sharia has arisen involve family law disputes.

SB 386 is a significant step forward in protecting Florida’s court systems from the infiltration of sharia law and in protecting Florida’s citizenry from all offensive forms of foreign laws and foreign legal doctrines.

ACT! for America is a 501 (c) 4 non-profit, non partisan organization that educates and empowers citizens to help play a role in enhancing our nation’s public safety. Today, ACT! has 280,000 members and 875 chapters nationwide including chapters in 11 countries around the world as far as Australia, South Africa and Israel.

On a regular basis, Ahmed Bedier uses his radio program, found on WMNF 88.5 FM Tampa, to provide a forum for radicals, including himself, who wish to spout hatred and/or protect those associated with terrorist activity. The show and Bedier’s actions outside the show are evils in our democratic society that need to be exposed.

For the past nine years, a radio show has been broadcast out of Tampa Bay, Florida every Friday representing the viewpoints of radical Islamists. The subjects on the show, ironically called ‘True Talk,’ almost always revolve around two subjects: extreme hatred of Israel and/or support for those associated with terrorism.

During the month of March, different anti-Israel and terror-related content made its way over the airwaves with the blessing of one of the show’s co-hosts, Ahmed Bedier.

On March 14th, over half of Bedier’s radio show consisted of a recorded speech given by Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi discussing strides being made by the boycott movement against Israel. Khalidi has previously been identified in different news reports as “a PLO spokesman” and “a director of the Palestinian press agency, Wafa” (Wikalat al-Anba al-Filastinija), which Khalidi himself has described as “the PLO’s news agency.”

According to the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987, signed into law by then-President Ronald Reagan, “The PLO and its constituent groups have taken credit for, and been implicated in, the murders of dozens of American citizens abroad… [T]he Congress determines that the PLO and its affiliates are a terrorist organization and a threat to the interests of the United States, its allies, and to international law…”

Bedier took calls in response to Khalidi’s speech, while lauding him as a “Middle East scholar.”

The previous week, on March 7th, Bedier had as a guest on the show the mother of convicted terrorist Ziyad Yaghi. According to the indictment against him, “the multiple defendants in the case,” Yaghi included, “prepared themselves to engage in violent acts and were willing to die as martyrs. They also offered training in weapons and financing and helped arrange overseas travel and contacts so others could wage violent acts overseas.” Yaghi was convicted on all counts and was sentenced to 31+ years in prison. He and his fellow co-conspirators lost their appeal.

According to his mom, Laila, Ziyad did nothing wrong. She called him a “goofy young man… a young man having fun.” She said that his only crime in the eyes of the prosecutors was that he was a Muslim.

Bedier agreed with the racism angle. But even if Yaghi was a terrorist, for Bedier it was not a problem, becauseYaghi didn’t actually carry out any violence. He said it was “shocking” that Yaghi was arrested before he actually did anything. He asked, “What kind of jihad and terrorism did these guys commit?… Did they commit any violence? Did they kill anybody? Did they hurt anyone? Did they shoot anyone?” Bedier called it a “preemptive prosecution” or arresting a terrorist before the crime takes place. What he failed to understand was that a conspiracy to commit terrorism is a crime in itself. For Bedier, it’s just a case of Freedom of Speech.

The ringleader of the group was Daniel Patrick Boyd a.k.a. Saifullah (“Sword of Allah”). Boyd, a convert to Islam, received training in terrorist camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Boyd recruited and trained others to go overseas and undertake violent jihad. He had discussed attacking the Quantico, Virginia Marine Corps base, while in possession of a large arsenal of firearms. He pled guilty to one count of conspiring to “provide material support to terrorists” and one count of conspiring to “murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons in a foreign country.”

There was a hearing of the Florida version of American Law for American Courts (ALAC) legislation, SB386: “acceptance of foreign laws in certain cases” before the Senate Judiciary Committee chaired by Republican Sen. Tom Lee.. The vote was on party lines, 6 Republicans to 3 Democrats. See who voted for the ALAC measure at the Florida Family Association website. The House version passed the first hearing on March 18th in the House Civil Justice Subcommittee. The House version of ALAC has also been referred to the Judiciary Committee for a hearing, the last stop before a House floor vote.

According to Sen. Alan Hays, Senate Sponsor of ALAC, the Family Law Section of the Florida Bar Association and a representative of Muslim Advocacy group , Emerge USA spoke in opposition. A contingent from Melbourne, Florida composed of retired senior military officers and an author waved testimony in favor of the measure. Watch this video of hearing on SB386 before the Senate Judiciary Committee beginning at time mark 111 minutes.

One of the Republicans who voted in favor of the ALAC legislation, Sen. John Thrasher, Chair of the Florida Senate Rules Committee approved the measure today. Clearance by the Rules Committee will be the final hearing before scheduling a Senate floor vote. The next Senate hearing will be conducted by the Florida Senate Government Oversight and Government Accountability Committee. Chairman and Deputy Chairman are Democrat Sen. Jeremy Ring and Republican and ALAC sponsor, Sen. Hays. Ring voted against SB386 at today’s Senate Judiciary Hearing.

Support may be stronger for passing SB 0386 on this fourth try for Florida ALAC. Part of that is attributable to research by the American Public Policy Alliance that revealed nearly two dozen decisions that recognized foreign laws at both the lower and appellate court levels in the sunshine state. Further, this legal research has been bolstered by disclosures of abductions and removal of American children by Saudi parents to Saudi Arabia, in violation of state, federal and international laws criminalizing such parental abductions. These Saudi abductions were allegedly justified in accordance with Sharia doctrine. See our NER and Iconoclast interviews with former Arkansas State University professor Margaret McClain, An American Child Kidnapped in Accordance with Shariah, and a Floridian, Ms. Yasmeen A. Davis, rescued by her family , Rescue from An Abduction to Saudi Arabia. Ms. Davis coincidentally lives in Sen. Ring’s district in South Florida. Sen. Hays and Professor McClain were featured speakers at the Annual Leadership Prayer Breakfast on March 13th in Tallahassee, sponsored by the Christian Family Coalition of Miami (CFC). See our Iconoclast post, “Meet the Florida Citizen Lobbyists backing ALAC in the 2014 Legislative Session”. Anthony Verdugo, CFC executive director indicated that passage of ALAC is one of the group’s major legislative priorities in the 2014 Session of the Florida Legislature.

Ahmed Bedier’s buffoonery was on display again for all to see. This video gives you an insight into the psychological make up of MCD organizer Mr. Ahmed Bedier, a self described civil rights advocate and community organizer. Mr. Bedier described Imam Azhar Subedar as a person that if you saw him “walking down the halls of the Capitol he was like gliding. People were not sure if they saw Jesus or someone from the Taliban.”

Wow, they ought to retire this guy. He’s the poster child for how not to do civilization jihad

Former Communications Director for the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations

Supported Sami Al-Arian, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative

Attended a pro-Hamas rally in 2008

Supporter of Hezbollah

Ahmed Bedier is President of the Tampa/Hillsborough County Human Rights Council in Florida. He is also a co-host (with Samar Jarrah) of WMNF-FM’s True Talk, a Muslim radio talk show.

Bedier has had ties to radical Islam since at least 2002, when he was the Outreach Director for the Islamic Society of Pinellas County (Florida), a mosque whose website features material calling for violence against Jews. Moreover, he has cultivated relationships with organizations and individuals connected to anti-Israel terrorist groups overseas, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and Hezbollah.

Also in February 2003, the Tampa-based terrorist and former University of South Florida professor Sami al-Arian was taken into custody by the FBI — indicted for his leadership role within Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Bedier became Al-Arian’s “unofficial spokesman,” holding press conferences where he voiced concern about the government’s treatment of the professor, and allowing his radio program to be used as a propaganda vehicle for al-Arian’s family and his PIJ colleagues.

In December 2003 CAIR opened a separate office in Tampa, and Bedier was named its Executive Director.

In December 2005 Bedier appeared on local Fox 13 WTVT’s Your Turn with Kathy Fountain to discuss Sami al-Arian’s ongoing legal troubles. During the show, Bedier was asked if he believed that al-Arian’s involvement with PIJ was immoral, to which he replied: “To a certain degree. Now, before 1995 there was nothing immoral about it.” It should be noted that PIJ had taken credit for five pre-1995 terrorist attacks that resulted in the deaths of eight innocent people.

Bedier left CAIR in May 2008. On December 30, 2008, he joined hundreds of demonstrators in a pro-Hamas rally in Tampa. Organized in large part by the Muslim American Society, the event featured signs that read “End Zionism” and “Zionism is Cancer; Radiate It.” Some participants at the protest donned keffiyehs, Palestinian symbols of violence worn as scarves.

On his radio program, Bedier often conveys his opinions on controversial matters through his guests. For example, on July 21, 2006 — while Israel’s war in Lebanon against Hezbollah was raging — Bedier’s three guests filled the entire show, to Bedier’s approval, with expressions of praise for Hezbollah. Among their comments were the following:

“I’ll just say that [Hezbollah is] not at all the picture that is portrayed of it in the West, as some sort of cartoonish terrorist group. It is a liberation movement in many senses for the Lebanese Shia … It has quite a clean record, and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, is revered probably by most Lebanese as a fairly eloquent and capable leader.”

“Hezbollah is composed of families that believe in liberation, families that believe [in] dignity, families that believe [in] purpose.”

“Yesterday alone, there was a 20-hour battle between the Israeli army and the National Resistance Movement of Hezbollah. For 20 hours they fought. This speaks volumes about the heroic nature of Hezbollah.”

In early 2009 Bedier established United Voices for America, a political advocacy organization that aims to portray Islam as a religion of peace and tolerance.

The same company that published a high school text book which embellishes Islamists and belittles Judaism and Christianity also has ownership in The Economist, a leading advertiser on Al Jazeera America.

Prentice Hall’s World History text book with its biased presentation of Islam continues to be used in numerous school districts. Parents have voiced concern in several school districts regarding the book’s dishonest rewrite of history regarding Islam and the omission of Judaism and Christianity.

“The book has a 36-page chapter on Islam but no chapters on Christianity or Judaism,” said Florida State Representative Rep. Ritch Workman, in Townhall, about the Prentice World History textbook. “It’s remarkably one-sided.

Mr. Workman said the textbook, which has been on the Brevard County schools’ approved course list for three years, also rewrites the history of Islam. He looked through it and found the authors “make a very obvious attempt not to insult Islam by reshaping history,” Townhall reported.

“If you don’t see it from the eyes of a parent, kids are going to take this book as gospel and believe that Christians and Jews were murderous barbarians and thank God the Muslims came along and the world is great,” he said, as Townhall reported.

Here’s an example: Muhammad and his armies’ take-over of Medina states depicted “people happily accept[ing of] Islam as their way of life. It leaves out that tens of thousands of Jews and non-believers were massacred by [Muhammad’s] armies. It’s a blatant deception.”

At the same time, the book depicts Jesus as claiming to be the Messiah — but writes as fact that Muhammad was the prophet, Mr. Workman said in the Townhall article. Students in the class are also taught about the Koran and pillars of Islam.

“They don’t do that for Christianity,” he said, as Townhall reported. “That is offensive to me.”

“Some of the descriptions of the battles use the word ‘massacre’ when it’s a Christian battle and ‘takeover’ when it’s a Muslim battle,” said Amy Kneessy to Fox News. “In young minds, massacre paints a very different visual picture than a takeover or occupation — when in fact both battles were very bloody.”

The publisher, Pearson, denied any bias. But Mr. Workman said he was told by a spokesperson for the publisher that a Muslim cleric was hired to write the sections on Islam.

The School District of Brevard County decided to provide a supplement to the Prentice Hall World History textbook.

TheVolusia County Schoolboard cancelled a public meeting scheduled for November 5, 2013 after the United States Department of Justice weighed in on the issue. WFTV in Orlando reported in part: The Volusia County School Board said it postponed its Tuesday meeting “in the interest of public safety.” The district said it was contacted by the U.S. Department of Justice before the meeting was supposed to start and said “the nature of this information raised substantial safety concerns.” The district said with the information it received, it decided to put more security measures in place to make sure everyone at the meeting would be safe. The district said it doesn’t comment on procedures but did say there was no specific threat of violence.

If there was no specific threat then why did Eric Holder and Barack Obama’s Department of Justice weigh in on this issue? Who filed the complaint that caused them to react? The answer to the first question, because this administration is jihadi friendly. Answer to second question, CAIR, most likely Hassan Shibly, executive director of CAIR Florida urged the Department of Justice to chime in like they have inappropriately done in many other matters.

The School District of Volusia County decided to continue to use the Prentice Hall World History textbook.

There are approximately 3,100 school districts in the United States.Citizens should take steps to oppose this biased book if it is used in their local school district. However, to confront this issue at the broadest possible level the company responsible for publishing this biased and misleading propaganda must be addressed.

Florida Family Association has prepared an email for you to send that urges Pearson plc officials to cease future publishing of the objectionable content and recall the book. If the company ignores this request, especially after the public opposition in several school districts, then Florida Family Association will launch more campaigns urging advertisers to stop supporting the Pearson owned Financial Times and The Economist.

To send your email, please click the following link, enter your name and email address then click the “Send Your Message” button. You may also change the subject or message text if you wish.